Tag Archives: Ronald Reagan

T-shirts bearing messages anticipating the imminent (hopefully) demise of Margaret Thatcher have been removed from sale outside the conference hall hosting the TUC Congress, in Brighton, amongst accusations of being “tasteless”. They were being sold to raise funds for the Derbyshire Unemployed Workers Centre.

One features a white cross on a grave with “Thatcher” across it, and the words: “A generation of trade unionists will dance on her grave”.

Another has an image of Mrs Thatcher’s spitting image puppet, with the words “Hey ho the witch is dead”.

I’m sorry, but that’s just wrong.

It should be “Hey ho the wicked witch is dead”. And even that is questionable , as it defames by association practitioners of witchcraft.

A much better wording would have been “Hey ho the wicked bitch is dead”. Maybe I should have a few made up…

Of course there’s been condemnations from Tory people and some Labour people (who are pretty much the same in these days of a new political class of interchangeable men – and women – in suits and bad haircuts), but I dont think they realise the depth of hatred that Thatcher still inspires. Most of the UK’s problems today stem from her government’s policies.

Apparently we’re supposed to be sorry for her now that she’s suffering from dementia… all I can say is that the diagnosis came 30 years too late. There always seemed to be a taint of madness around the woman, and I recall the height of her power as a pretty frightening time, when even a nuclear war seemed possible… along with her equally demented pal Ronald Reagan she seemed quite capable of starting one. In the event she just let him park his weapons of mass destruction here, and concentrated going to war with Argentina over a few rocks in the South Atlantic no-one knew were “ours” anyway.

But in any case, this current manufactured outrage about anti-Thatcher t-shirts is old hat. They were around in the 1980s, at the height of her dismantling of the welfare state, NHS, mining, shipbuilding, steel industries, public transport, council housing, etc. I had one and wore it with pride. It’s long gone now of course, but the same design was also produced on badges, and I still have one of those.

Here it is – a genuine piece of popular political comment from back in the day.

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Incidentally, if you want to keep up with her current status, check out isthatcherdeadyet.co.uk